Tag: Cayman Islands Grand Court
Ramsay-Hale returns to Cayman bench
(CNS): Margaret Ramsay-Hale, who served for many years as a magistrate in Summary Court and as an acting Grand Court judge here in the Cayman Islands before she left to sit on the bench in the Turks and Caicos Islands, is returning to in the New Year. Governor Martyn Roper, on advice from the Judicial […]
Lack of lawyers and space fuel crime case backlog
(CNS): The backlog of criminal indictments carried over from 2018 into this year is the largest ever, Chief Justice Anthony Smellie told the Cayman Islands legal profession Wednesday at the annual opening of the Grand Court. Cases are not being disposed of due to shortages of both space and defence lawyers willing to take on […]
DPP appointed as Grand Court judge
(CNS): After 22 years of prosecuting offenders in the Cayman Islands, Cheryll Richards, QC will begin judging them next month after she takes up a position on the local bench. The current director of public prosecutions, Richards has been appointed as a full-time judge of the Grand Court and will take up her new seat on […]
Three new acting judges added to bench
(CNS): The new Cayman Islands governor, Martyn Roper, has made his first appointments to the local bench with three new justices. Judge Aileen Downey, Simon Russell Flint QC, and Hugh Southey QC will be added to the existing panel of acting Grand Court judges who help support the growing court dockets. The Judicial and Legal Services […]
Lawyers scrutinize fraud trial outcome
Walkers Cayman Islands partners Colette Wilkins and Shelley White write: After a trial lasting a little over a year, the Chief Justice of the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands has handed down judgment in the case of AHAB v SICL & Others, the most significant fraud trial, both in terms of value and length, […]
Chief justice dismisses claims in massive Saudi fraud trial
(CNS): The biggest ever trial to be held in the Cayman Islands has finally concluded, after almost two years of deliberations, as fraud allegations in Saudi Arabia — centering initially on over US$9 billion of debt — were dismissed by Chief Justice Anthony Smellie in the case known as SAAD, which brought the eyes of […]
Challenges ahead for lifers’ tariffs
(CNS): The Grand Court of the Cayman Islands has now completed the allocation of tariffs for all the relevant prisoners serving mandatory life sentences for murder, defining the minimum time they must serve before they are eligible for release on licence. However, the appeal court is likely to be hearing challenges to several of them […]
Chief justice accuses CIG of ignoring judicial crisis
(CNS): Chief Justice Anthony Smellie pulled no punches in his address at the 2018 Opening of the Grand Court Wednesday, when he criticised the government for failing to understand the constitutional crisis in the justice system and the urgent need for a new court-house. He has raised the issue almost every year because the current […]
Court caseload ‘almost logistically impossible’
(CNS): The chief justice has warned that the court workload is now so great that without a new building it is verging on a “logistic impossibility” to manage the cases properly. Every year at the Grand Court’s ceremonial opening for almost a decade Chief Justice Anthony Smellie has raised the problem that the courthouse, which […]
New faces to appear on Grand Court bench
(CNS): With the departure of Justice Alex Henderson from the courts this month, the appointment of two new judges, who begin presiding today (Thursday 8 January), will be welcomed by an already stretched bench. Justice Ingrid Mangatal joins the Cayman judiciary from Jamaica full time, while local attorney Justice Robin McMillan has assumed an acting […]
Obituary: Former Justice Priya Levers 1946-2014
(CNS): Priya Levers, who was the first woman to serve on the Cayman Islands Grand Court bench, died on Christmas Eve aged 68 at home surrounded by her family. Levers came to the Cayman Islands from Jamaica and began serving as a full-time judge in 2003. Originally from Sri Lanka, she moved to Jamaica when […]
